I really don't know much about this, but whenever I google it and lose a couple of hours, I come away thinking no one else really knows anything, either. Pressure exposed the level of rot, and has intensified infighting? Some sort of neat little Gladwell tipping point analysis?
I would freaking love it if someone here knew all about this.
Also, 23,000 people? That's a war, right?
My man Noel has written a lot about this. This post should help: http://noelmaurer.typepad.com/aab/2010/07/social-science-and-mexican-organized-crime-pan-victories-smuggling-routes-and-death.html
http://noelmaurer.typepad.com/aab/mxico/
Also, 23,000 people? That's a war, right?
The LA Times coverage of it has been pretty good, if you're looking for a source of more information. I know I linked to some articles in the comments somewhere....
The two proximate causes I hear/read the most about are (1) Calderón throwing a ton of federal troops at the cartels and (2) the Zetas falling out with the Gulf Cartel (the two used to work in close consort).
My understanding is that the story is basically that the Mexican organizations, who (unlike Colombia, which truly had a cartel in the antitrust sense) hate each other, became the main players in the cocaine biz (as opposed to just transport for the Colombians) at exactly the same time the PRI lost control of Mexico. So, a stable situation in which a corrupt Mexican government allowed, but restrained, the cocaine trade became a giant free for all at just the wrong time. When complicated by enforcement efforts by Calderon's troops, you have the equivalent of a five or six way war going on.
The research in the first link in 2 is smart.
Mexico used to be a single-party state-- paying off whoever in PRI ran Baja or Sinaloa would give effective carte blanche to the payer of the bribe. With the collapse of single-party rule, it's not clear who to pay, there is competition between politicians from two parties to shake down criminal and legit business, so things get worse before they eventually get better. Monterrey is not a depopulated backwater, so watching what happens there probably makes sense.
A more divided drug trade too, I guess, but I have no facts, beyond occasional news articles about heroin from Michoacan that costs about as much as chewing gum in the US. The people I talk to who have contacts with drug treatment centers confirm that heroin is very cheap in the US.
Obviously, it would be nice if it were harder to buy guns fit only for warlords and comic books here in the US, but that's not going to change.
Btw, I believe there's a mistake in the OP. She is the police chief, not the mayor.
Presumably still dead soon, no?
Very brave. Not being sarcastic here; I can't imagine. But Police Chief seems somehow actually more deadifying than Mayor.
Obviously, it would be nice if it were harder to buy guns fit only for warlords and comic books here in the US, but that's not going to change.
There was a blistering article in, I think, Fortune, a year or so ago, describing the drugs-for-guns traffic across the U.S.-Mexico border and the response of the American firearms companies (e.g., Colt started selling dolled-up pistols with names like "El Jefe").
Speaking of drugs, it wouldn't surprise me if these were laced with cocaine. Especially good with coffee.
http://www.brooksidefoods.com/usa/products/dark-chocolate-acai-blueberry.php
You probably shouldn't be doing too much cocaine, gswift.
What I need is some way to gauge how much is just right. Who's the Little Red Riding Hood of cocaine around here?
That's Goldilocks, dude. You're clearly high.
There's probably a market niche out there for drug-oriented versions of classic fairy tales, assuming some hippie back in the sixties didn't get there first.
"What big nostrils you have, grandmother."
18: Brilliant! The Three Little Pigs? An allegory about an ever-more-severe police state. (I mean, they are pigs.)
"And I'd huff, and I'd huff, and I'd blow your house down, but I just had a couple of epic bong hits, so I couldn't blow over a house of cards without coughing my lungs out at the moment."
I was reading somewhere I can't find at the moment that Vicente Fox was actually trying to undermine the drug gangs by selective decriminalisation combined with serious individual targetting of individuals, but the US FDA went apeshit and got State to make him stop. And then Calderon got in and tried to use direct confrontation instead, with the results we now see.
There's probably a market niche out there for drug-oriented versions of classic fairy tales, assuming some hippie back in the sixties didn't get there first.
I wouldn't assume that for a moment. I was around at the time and there were drugged up fairy tales in every roneoed apology for an alternative magazine. Doing it well now, that would be a good idea.
22: Yes, my general assumption was that it's all America's fault (we buy the drugs, we sell guns cheap to anyone with a pulse), but didn't reply to the post because I didn't see any reason why either of those factors would have mushroomed over the past several years. Your mechanism seems as good as any.
Interesting that there seems to be a convergence of Latin American ex-Presidents (Mexico x 2, Brazil, Colombia) in favour of decriminalisation. I wonder how far they're deliberately standing up to say what the incumbents don't yet feel they can say.
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Does anybody have a good phase that is similar in meaning to "fellow travelers" - in the sense of people who agree with our cause but are not active or formal members of our group - but that does not have the connotation that our group is made up of Bolsheviks?
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Does anybody have a good phase that is similar in meaning to "fellow travelers" - in the sense of people who agree with our cause but are not active or formal members of our group - but that does not have the connotation that our group is made up of Bolsheviks?
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Sympathizers?
Or in the context of Mexican drug wars...Compadres?
"the silent majority" doesn't have Bolshevik connotations, but may have other connotations you don't want.
Think I'm going to go with "Sympathetic Interested Parties".... thanks.
"The silent but deadly majority" has totally different connotations.
Even for ninja professional associations?
Didn't "fellow traveler" have the connotation, not that the referent was a Bolshevik, but that they were serving their interests out of mystification or misplaced alliance? Or maybe that's "pinko".
A Mexican dude recently called me carnal, in the same way one would use amigo. So I say go with that.
36: As used by my father, an early CIO organizer and official, a "fellow traveler" was anyone on the same road and going in the same direction as the Communists. It didn't matter how they got that road.
36: That seems closer to what would be described as a useful idiot.